rows of two!-three!-four!-boys-bloc-king-the-cor-rid-or
will soon be gone
and the RHYTH-mic-tick-tock-of-my-leg-BOUN-cing-on-the-floor
will be no more
it's fresh cadavers wrapped in string
it is a joyful gospel hymn
mourning the best and worst of youth
(those shiny kids who'd first walked in
with all the grace and all the poise
of hatched arachnids missing limbs)

but what of "her" – you know her name –
that overfed, reptilian thing
who shed her hair and scratched her skin,
cursing the odds at Him upstairs, demanding He re-shape her?

some say she cried herself into extinction
– sailed away on a crimson tide –
balking at the trauma of being seen
(enforced, cursed vulnerability
in being known to man).

the rest knew better;
they were voyeurs in this
fruit-carving tutorial
on 'how to grow up':

STEP 1) consider all other alternatives
2) take the scalpel and initiative
3) before adrenaline gives way to doubt,
turn the flesh-vessel inside out in a cocoon of your own creation!
while organs may rupture and it aches like you've skinned yourself alive (good for her, setting herself free!) you'll look cuter in the class photos and has you-know-who... finally... shifted the weight?
4) breathe through the blood loss and searing pain
5) notice
           you
                can
                     breathe again.
                     at this point, does it matter that it aches?

Why do my eyes waver in salt water?
It's just a concept I don't really understand when
The ocean in my mind is dry but
My eyes? So wet.
And yet, fire roars through an ***** named Passion - and the sand beneath my feet burns their soles and tries to
Penetrate my soul
But I have buckets,
Tucked under two lids,
That can spill with or without my will.
They can put out a flame, both good and bad. A blessing and a curse.
I'm told that fish can't climb trees but I have neither arms nor gills you see
I have been immobilised,
And it's down to a monochrome smear on a canvas with so much potential;
A plethora of 'dos' and 'don'ts';
The slaughter of a lamb.
I would like to stand in solidarity with each martyr of idiosyncrasy.
I wonder if anything we ever do will be enough.